Divorce Pension Entitlement

Worried about what will happen to your pension entitlement upon divorce?

When people get married, their pensions are often one of the largest – if not the largest – capital assets they own. This means that pensions are something that need to be paid special attention if you and your spouse later decide to get a divorce.

The issue of your pension will be dealt with when you and your spouse are sorting out your financial settlement. As pensions can often be complicated, such as if one partner has a much larger pension than the other, it is a good idea to talk to your divorce solicitor about the matter early on in the divorce procedure.

Your Pension Entitlement Will Be Taken Into Account on Your Divorce

When sorting out a financial settlement upon divorce, in general, all the financial assets of the family need to be taken into account and added to the pot available for redistribution. This will include your pension. That doesn’t automatically mean that your spouse will gain part or all of your pension – but it will have to be taken into account. So if, for example, you want to keep all your pension, and your pension is a significant part of your family’s assets it may be that will have to accept a lesser share of the remaining assets. The position may be different in the event of a very short marriage without children – when, in general, parties should expect to return, roughly, to owning the level of financial assets which they introduced to the marriage in the first place.

Divorce and Your Pension – What Are The Options?

Pension Sharing

One option when it comes to pensions available to the court on divorce, is an order for any pension to be shared. This tends to happen when one spouse has a much larger pension than the other.

Deferred Pension Sharing Order

This order allows all the pension in question to be shared at a future date.

Pension Offsetting

Another option when getting divorced is to offset the loss of the pension with other matrimonial assets. For example, in a case where a woman lost her entitlement to her husband’s pension due to their divorce, capital assets such as the house might be taken into consideration. This is something that your divorce solicitor will be able to advise you on.

Pension Earmarking

This is another pension option available to courts on divorce, although it isn’t as commonly used as offsetting pensions with other assets. Earmarking is when a court awards a percentage of a pension to the former spouse. This percentage can be as much as 100%, but the entitlement ends if the spouse receiving the pension remarries or if the pension-holder dies.

The option that is taken with the pensions in your case will be likely to depend on the kind of pensions you have, as well as their value, your other assets and other financial information.

For initial FREE phone advice and a FREE 30 minutes appointment about what will happen to your pension on divorce, call one of the DIVORCE SOLICITORS at any of our offices today or email our team by filling out the contact form below.FREEPHONE 0800 1404544.

SALISBURY [01722] 422300

AMESBURY [01980] 622992

ANDOVER [01264] 364433

Your Name (required)

Your Email (required)

Subject

Your Message

FREE DIVORCE ADVICE

Initial legal advice and your first 30 minutes appointment on Divorce and Family Law is FREE.